“We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”

Hey, no fair stealing my blog post title. 😉

Okay, I need a little clarification here.

Does this mean that only those wishing to be reimbursed for their HSA would need a script for these OTC items? Or will everyone need a script to buy these OTC items regardless of whether they wish to have a tax right off or not?

Re: #7

Only those wishing to be reimbursed for their HSA would need a script for these OTC items.

If you are not a senior or if you are able to pay out of pocket you will not need the script.

what a shame. HSA’s and FSA’s are part of the solution and from what I have seen, work really well.

I know a bit about this; I’ve got an HSA, myself.

The list of tax deductible HSA items is very generous, and even includes things like abortion (and this was GOP legislation), contact lenses, lasik surgery, etc.

No private health insurance pays for self-prescribed over the counter medications, such as those listed in the initial post. There is no reason that the government should subsidize these purchases, either. The HSA law remains very generous: one is perfectly free to buy any OTC drugs one wishes to buy, only it won’t be tax deductible unless there’s some type of professional certification that it’s necessary. So, on your next doctor visit, you’ll tell the doc that you’d like to lay in a small supply of OTC drugs to keep in your home medicine cabinet for emergencies. Antihistamines, Tylenol, Advil, whatever. And then you’ll still get a government subsidy.

What’s the big deal? There is no big brotherism involved. You are still free to buy all the OTC drugs you want. Only, if you want a tax deduction, you’ve got to jump through a very small hoop.

It just prevents abuses. For example, let’s say that I’m in the 28% tax bracket and I go out and buy $1,000 worth of Tylenol and re-sell it at a garage sale for a price less than they charge at Wal-Mart. That sort of thing.

Much ado about nothing, this complaint is.

I’m waiting for the screams about public money (which is what Tax Deductions are, in effect) being used to subsidize abortions.

Why don’t social conservatives feel that abortions should be excluded from being HSA deductible medical services? How can you support candidates who voted for this law?

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Open id: you all are so worry about the GOP treating the problem: DON’T you worry,
they are expert in fixing problems coming from precedent administration,
as they will bring some, and remove the flaws that AMERICANS are not satisfied with,
because they will serve the people according to the laws of the land, and they know those laws better than anyone, they are fair and tolerant and highly intelligent,
IN other word they will bring thrust among the people for their GOVERNMENT.

@Larry…. Obamacare is so full of redtape requirements, and nonsense… it’s CHEAPER for a company to “opt out” and pay the “fines” than offer insurance anymore… and it’s cheaper for the individual to pay a “fine” than BUY insurance…. driving BOTH types to the GOV teat once again…. the whole purpose of this plan!! Get everyone on the dole!!! That way, you have “people control”!! After all, you don’t “bite the hand that cures you”…….. same old Liberal plan…. keep us all “on the plantation”….

Good question…. WHY can “Big Pharma” sell so CHEAP to Canada, yet they REAM us???? Who “sold us out”???? No other excuse….

@mata:

No, of course it’s not Bush’s fault that insurance premiums doubled on his watch and that the average insurance contributions of employed Americans rose from near zero to $4,000. And, yes, Obamacare will deserve the blame for a small fraction of the premium increase to follow, at least for the next 3 years. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Obamacare mandates:

1. No disqualification for pre-existing conditions.

2. No lifetime benefit cap (something that the average person can’t appreciate until he/she gets diabetes, cancer, a crippling auto accident, falls off a horse (e.g. Superman), multiple sclerosis, etc. etc. In other words, the sorts of things for which one really needs health insurance, as health insurance isn’t needed for stuff which costs less than a transmission job on a car, for which no one buys insurance.

3. No getting one’s insurance cancelled because he/she gets sick. Insurance companies do this by adding riders to insurance renewals, excluding or limiting coverage for intercurrent illnesses.

4. Allowing unemployed kids to stay on their parent’s insurance until they are 26.

OF COURSE, the above costs money. But you get what you pay for. I’m self employed, and I was willing to pay whatever was required, but I couldn’t find ANY policies which offered the above benefits, at any price. It took Obamacare to bring me these benefits.

But the amount of incremental costs of Obamacare, to provide the above benefits, is a drop in the bucket, compared to the insurance premium increases which have been occurring, for entirely unrelated reasons, for the past decade.

And you have to remember that, in the GOP’s “repeal and replace” initiative, they are supposedly going to keep the above, popular and beneficial aspects of Obamacare, while supposedly getting rid of the “socialist” stuff. Like mandates and subsidies.

Good luck. I am going to really enjoy watching the GOP stew in its own juices, having taken ownership of healthcare, trying to preserve #s 1 through 4, while getting rid of mandates and subsidies. Mandates and subsidies weren’t Obama’s idea. They were the ideas of Grassley, Dole, and Romney. Mandates and subsidies are REQUIRED in order to make #s 1 through 4 add up, budget-wise.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Mata scolds:

Again I will remind you that it’s disingenuous to suggest that O’healthcare doesn’t place a higher degree of fiscal burden on employers (in an economic downturn) that they will be passing on to their employees. Yet you don’t address this. Why?

Here’s the facts:

1. Insurance rates were skyrocketing, before and during the time when no one thought anything like Obamacare would pass.

2. In January, 2010, after Scott Brown’s election in MA, when everyone thought Obamacare was dead in the water, Anthem Blue Cross announced a 39% premium increase. I wrote about this at the time on F/A and couldn’t understand the timing of the announcement, which was ostensibly stupid beyond belief. Couldn’t they have imagined their announcement would have ignited a firestorm, which would breathe life back into the corpse of Obamacare? I wondered if Anthem might not be in cahoots with Obama, even, though I couldn’t for the life of me understand why.

3. The announcement did, indeed, trigger a firestorm. Anthem quickly withdrew it. Other health insurance companies stayed on the sidelines, waiting to see what would go down. And Obamacare was raised from the dead.

4. Obamacare passes. Now Anthem reinstates its rate increases, on a national basis, blaming the increases on Obamacare. Other insurers jump in, gleefully raising their rates, as well, having someone to blame. The GOP licks its chops and piles on.

The point is this: The explosion of health care costs has very little to do with Obamacare, which I have conceded does add some incremental, short term costs. I say short term, because, long-term, it will reduce the costs which would be otherwise uncontrollable.

Tell me a single idea which the GOP has advanced which has any prayer of reducing the rate of health care cost growth, and we can then discuss it. I haven’t seen anything at all. Malpractice reform has already been in place here in California for 30 years (the model for the nation, adopted by Texas several years ago, also without any impact on health care costs or defensive medicine practices). Allow insurance to be sold across state lines, and almost everyone will lose their present coverage, in favor of insurance plans which are the cheapest and which offer the least protections, in states with the weakest insurance regulations. Just wait until that happens and see what working people with employer-provided insurance say.

You suggest I should feel shame for wishing the GOP health care plan actually be adopted, so the public will finally get it drilled through its thick collective head just how vacuous are the present attempts to demonize health insurance reform.

I feel this way because I’m looking at the long term future of the country. The electorate is stupid and uniformed and gullible. Both Democrats and Republicans take advantage of this fact. I am beginning to fear that, with such a stupid and uniformed electorate, authoritarian capitalism (i.e. in the persona of China) may be a more successful economic model, in the 21st century. We as a nation can no longer expect to compete, with vacuous leadership, elected by a stupid and uninformed electorate.

Experience is the best teacher. The electorate clearly needs more experience with 21st Century Conservatism, running the country, to fully comprehend its truly fatal flaws. Short term loss, for long term gain. That’s why I feel no sense of shame in wishing that the GOP actually will get the chance to take ownership of health care in America.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA